you lived in a palace as you may say—in the greatest luxury—spending money wholesale—this was of course your business.
We
lived plainly and spent the money on our children’s education, added what Emmanuel earned, as he has never lived doing nothing as you seem to think!
My jewels are the only thing I will have to leave to my daughter after my death! Emmanuel is trying to sell my silver, as we are head over heels in debt to the Belgian lady and family who share our flat with us, but he must consider the future when no more able to work and a sick wife to support, and the comfort and care my poor miserable state of health requires. And still I cannot afford consulting a first-class specialist, nor having sufficient strengthening food in my sad exile! We live in no luxury and I have to struggle hard to make ends meet. I do all the correspondence and write to all our relations for Christmas and Easter and birthdays as I cannot on account of my poor miserable state of health do house work—you have been able to shake my poor health, which is still worse since my poor son’s death!
If Major Beastly told you we live in luxury, it is not true, of course. We tried to give him a good time during his stay in Tokyo and here, in depriving ourselves—at great sacrifice to ourselves, not knowing that he was to show himself a turncoat and informer!—and at very great inconvenience, too, for this man, as you may know yourself by now, doesn’t shave but—oh, makes such a smell with a hair-burning apparatusthat we have been obliged to open all windows in the house, and I caught a chill in consequence, which is terribly dangerous in my miserable state of health!
If you had no wife or sons to help you, I assure you I would give anything to allow you a small sum, but as it is, and having no money of my own, I cannot do so.
Well, this is the last you will ever hear from me—you have hurt and offended me too cruelly, too unjustly! I shall
never
forget your shameful
insultent
letter I certainly
never
deserved!
Uncle Emmanuel suggested her signing it at this point. But Aunt Teresa felt that this was not really enough.
‘May God forgive you!’ she added, and then signed it:
‘Teresa Vanderflint.’
Uncle Emmanuel, writing his letter in French, began thus:
To my brother-in-law Lucy Diabologh.
I have just read the abusive letter which you have had the audacity to write to your sister Teresa who had nothing but the tenderest feelings towards you. Allowing for your own feelings in the matter, I choose to tell you that you have surpassed the measure of decent behaviour and that your letter has completely wrecked the health of my poor wife whose precarious state impels constant care and attention, and for whom, I must warn you, such emotions may prove fatal. If my income was inferior to that derived by my wife from the money inherited from her father, it does not yet follow that I have lived on your money, as you imply. Nevertheless, your offer to settle your debt to us of 500,000 roubles by one shilling appears to me so indescribably odious that I decline to discuss the matter with you any further. I repeat that I have never had the privilege of living on you, as you imagine, but that my family benefited by an advantageous (?) investment in a Russian industry at a time of prosperity of a capital of100,000 roubles which belonged to my wife and that you were in duty bound to do your best for all of us. The facts have proved, alas! that the too absolute confidence that we have reposed in the ability and judgment of our brother-in-law has resulted in a catastrophe which must have occurred even if the war and revolution had not intervened. It must not, therefore, be forgotten by you that
we
are your creditors and not you ours, as you erroneously suppose.
I regret that for the first time that I have to correspond with a brother-in-law whom I had never had the occasion to meet I must be called to give him a lesson in
savoir vivre
. I
We
lived plainly and spent the money on our children’s education, added what Emmanuel earned, as he has never lived doing nothing as you seem to think!
My jewels are the only thing I will have to leave to my daughter after my death! Emmanuel is trying to sell my silver, as we are head over heels in debt to the Belgian lady and family who share our flat with us, but he must consider the future when no more able to work and a sick wife to support, and the comfort and care my poor miserable state of health requires. And still I cannot afford consulting a first-class specialist, nor having sufficient strengthening food in my sad exile! We live in no luxury and I have to struggle hard to make ends meet. I do all the correspondence and write to all our relations for Christmas and Easter and birthdays as I cannot on account of my poor miserable state of health do house work—you have been able to shake my poor health, which is still worse since my poor son’s death!
If Major Beastly told you we live in luxury, it is not true, of course. We tried to give him a good time during his stay in Tokyo and here, in depriving ourselves—at great sacrifice to ourselves, not knowing that he was to show himself a turncoat and informer!—and at very great inconvenience, too, for this man, as you may know yourself by now, doesn’t shave but—oh, makes such a smell with a hair-burning apparatusthat we have been obliged to open all windows in the house, and I caught a chill in consequence, which is terribly dangerous in my miserable state of health!
If you had no wife or sons to help you, I assure you I would give anything to allow you a small sum, but as it is, and having no money of my own, I cannot do so.
Well, this is the last you will ever hear from me—you have hurt and offended me too cruelly, too unjustly! I shall
never
forget your shameful
insultent
letter I certainly
never
deserved!
Uncle Emmanuel suggested her signing it at this point. But Aunt Teresa felt that this was not really enough.
‘May God forgive you!’ she added, and then signed it:
‘Teresa Vanderflint.’
Uncle Emmanuel, writing his letter in French, began thus:
To my brother-in-law Lucy Diabologh.
I have just read the abusive letter which you have had the audacity to write to your sister Teresa who had nothing but the tenderest feelings towards you. Allowing for your own feelings in the matter, I choose to tell you that you have surpassed the measure of decent behaviour and that your letter has completely wrecked the health of my poor wife whose precarious state impels constant care and attention, and for whom, I must warn you, such emotions may prove fatal. If my income was inferior to that derived by my wife from the money inherited from her father, it does not yet follow that I have lived on your money, as you imply. Nevertheless, your offer to settle your debt to us of 500,000 roubles by one shilling appears to me so indescribably odious that I decline to discuss the matter with you any further. I repeat that I have never had the privilege of living on you, as you imagine, but that my family benefited by an advantageous (?) investment in a Russian industry at a time of prosperity of a capital of100,000 roubles which belonged to my wife and that you were in duty bound to do your best for all of us. The facts have proved, alas! that the too absolute confidence that we have reposed in the ability and judgment of our brother-in-law has resulted in a catastrophe which must have occurred even if the war and revolution had not intervened. It must not, therefore, be forgotten by you that
we
are your creditors and not you ours, as you erroneously suppose.
I regret that for the first time that I have to correspond with a brother-in-law whom I had never had the occasion to meet I must be called to give him a lesson in
savoir vivre
. I
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